


Everything Looks Different (Now That I See You)

by palaces_out_of_paragraphs



Category: The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: All those years chasing down a daydream, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Rapunzel Fusion, Alternate Universe - Tangled (2010) Fusion, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fairy Tale Style, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff, Happy Ending, Inspired by Tangled (2010), Mutual Pining, Pining, Rapunzel Elements, Tangled (2010) References, all that time never truly seeing things the way they were, all those years living in a blur, westallen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26458093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palaces_out_of_paragraphs/pseuds/palaces_out_of_paragraphs
Summary: The intruder in her tower stares at her like he’s wonderstruck, like she’s made of stardust and moonglow and everything beautiful and he cannot tear his gaze away.Which throws Iris off her guard, considering she’s just tried to hit him over the head with a frying pan.A Westallen x Tangled AU.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Iris West, Barry Allen/Iris West, Iris West & Joe West
Comments: 24
Kudos: 855





	Everything Looks Different (Now That I See You)

Barry Allen is running.

Not that anyone could even see it, not with the quick way he moves in the space between heartbeats and spans of breath. But he _is_ running, fast as lightning and hot Thawne’s trail.

Or, what he _thought_ was hot on Thawne’s trail.

But Thawne is nowhere to be seen, and though the rest of the world’s in slow motion, nearly frozen at the speed he moves at, Barry can no longer see any tell-tale hint of the meta’s orange energy.

Maybe he’d just imagined it anyway, he thinks. Maybe he’d just wished it, considering he knows what tomorrow is the anniversary of and what it would mean to Joe if he’d caught Thawne.

Or maybe, Barry thinks, as he spies an old watchtower off in the distance, deep in the woods, he just needs a better vantage point.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

One second there is nothing, and then there is a burst of light, sharp and bright, like an indoor lightning strike, and then:

There is a man in her tower.

And Iris acts on her gut instinct and grabs her frying pan.

She swings it at the intruder’s head, but it doesn’t connect; instead Iris is left smacking thin air, because suddenly he’s no longer there, and she turns in shock to see him on the other side of the room.

(A _meta,_ Iris realizes as she takes in the hood and red velvet mask that goes over his eyes and thinks of his crackling gold lightning and the way he’s just conjured himself up out of thin air.

She’s never met a meta before.

But then it’s not like she’s ever really met, well, _anyone_ before.)

“ _Hey_ ,” the intruder protests, as she attempts to hit him once more, and he doesn’t even sound angry at her for trying to smack him over the head with a frying pan, he just sounds sheepish and vaguely offended. 

(Iris stresses on the _vaguely_ , because he somehow makes it sound like being attacked with a blunt force cooking object isn’t even the worst thing to happen to him today.)

“I’m sorry, I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he babbles rapidly, “I thought this tower was empty! It looked empty? I thought it was abandoned? I should’ve looked closer, but I was out...running?”

The last word comes out in a sort of question, and Iris isn’t in the habit of believing those who break and enter but, well...he looks so awkward, honestly. Apologetic and flustered and nearly tripping over his own two feet as he backs away from her, his hands up as if to reassure her he’s harmless.

Well, harmless to _her_. Iris isn’t sure he’s harmless in general. She can see the long, lean muscles of his arms beneath his white shirt, notices the way his wine-colored vest is stretched out over his chest, and thinks that he could certainly hold his own in a brawl. 

Iris’ gaze flickers back up to his face, studies his eyes through the deep red velvet mask and asks, “And do you often go ‘ _running’_ in the woods while in disguise?”

“Well,” he says, as he breathes out a laugh that sounds like it falls somewhere in-between being smug and being self-depreciating, “I _am_ the Flash.”

The... _Flash_?

(The thing about living in a tower in the woods is, you miss out a bit on current events.)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Barry blinks.

Leave it to him to finally be in his alternate identity and all ready to impress a girl and the one girl he falls for isn't impressed by the Flash. 

He thinks she might not even know who the Flash even is in the first place.

The girl in question seems to deem him safe enough, though, because she lets go of her frying pan, using her now free hand to tuck a lock of her nearly floor-length, stunning black hair behind her ear as she says, “I’m Iris.”

 _Iris,_ Barry repeats, nothing but her name echoing around in his mind, and Barry feels awash with a sensation he can’t really explain, except that he feels like he’s just been struck by lightning all over again.

(He feels that same electric spark, that same sense that his world is ending and beginning and that he’s being reborn, and he can’t seem to shake the idea that this girl means something, that she is some sort of sign or tipping point, a message that his life will never be the same.)

But Iris must’ve taken his silence as if he were waiting for her to say her surname, because she shakes her head. 

“I don’t have a last name,” she says, and she frowns for a second, eyes looking far away. 

“You can have mine,” Barry offers quickly, without really even thinking, because he hates that sad look in her eyes.

And it’s only when Iris lips twitch in amusement and she raises an eyebrow that Barry reruns those words through his head and the implications of his sentence hits him and he feels himself blush behind his mask. 

“I didn’t! No, not like - I wasn’t trying to! I mean -” he starts several rapid fire excuses, but can’t finish any of them, because Iris is laughing at him and - _oh._ He can’t think properly with her laughing like that, teasing but all lovely and warm, like a sudden burst of sunshine on a cloudy day. 

No human being should be able to laugh as nice as that, Barry thinks.

It’s unfair, really. 

(Barry belatedly realizes that he’s offered her his last name without even _telling_ her his last name. Which he probably shouldn’t even tell her anyway considering he has a secret identity to keep and all. 

Ridiculously pretty Iris and her stupidly nice laugh making him go and forget things like that.)

“So, _Flash_ ,” she says - And can she just _stop_ smiling at him like that, please? It’s really very distracting. - “What is it exactly that you do that makes running through the woods a normal occurrence?”

Barry shrugs, and he tries to think of a way to describe what he does, but when it comes down to it - right down to it - what he does can be summed up in three words, so he simply says, “I help people.”

She cocks her head, “How?”

“In any way my powers can.”

“Your powers,” Iris says slowly, and she suddenly looks very, very interested in a way that’s just ever so slightly terrifying, “you...materialize?”

“Sort of,” he says, shifting on his feet. “I’m fast.”

“How fast?”

And in the blink of an eye, he’s moved so that he’s standing behind her, and she spins, surprise in her eyes at the sight. 

And then something in her expression shifts as she studies him, like she’s measuring him, formulating a plan and mapping it out, and he finds himself fascinated by the intensity of her gaze.

“So, hypothetically,” she says, and he’s not sure whether she’s talking to him or to herself, “you could go all the way from the center of the kingdom to here in the time it takes to blink an eye.”

He’s never heard that unit of measurement before, and he’s still unsure if it’s a question or observation, whether it’s directed at him or not, but he nods anyway.

(The whole while thinking, _what is happening?_ Because he’s the Flash, for crying out loud, he’s a hero who’s supposed to be quick as whip, but this girl whose head barely comes up to his shoulder seems to be running circles around him instead of the other way around.)

And then, before he realizes what’s happening, Iris is taking his hand, leading him to the window, and pointing up at the sky.

“One night each year, there’s a spot on the horizon that lights up,” Iris says, and the way she says it is dreamlike, all hushed and excited at the exact same time, like she’s telling him a secret or spinning out a fairy tale. “It’s brighter than starlight, more dazzling than anything else I’ve ever seen. It happens every year, and it’s happening again tomorrow. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Barry blinks at her, at the enthralled way she talks, like she thinks the lights are better than anything else in this life.

“Yes, I’ve been there,” he says, slowly, wondering why she finds such a well-known thing so fascinating. “I go to the lantern festival every year.”

“The lantern festival,” she repeats.

“The King holds it every year, in honor of his daughter, the late Princess,” Barry tells her. “The one who died when she was a baby.”

(“I wanted to do something beautiful,” Joe had told Barry once. “Something as beautiful as she was, to honor her life, not her death.”)

Barry can practically see Iris’ mind working with this bit of information, like she’s thinking it over before filing it away somewhere in the back of her mind, and then she says: 

“Do you really help people?”

And when he nods, she asks:

“Will you help _me?_ ”

And her sad but hope-filled eyes are dark and wide, and _how_ is she doing that? he wonders. How is she making his pulse race and the rest of the world blur around him, how is she making him feel like he’s running even though he’s standing still?

And he finds himself saying _yes_ , because it’s like even now he already knows that he’d gladly offer her the world in the palm of his hand just to stop her eyes from looking so sad.

And then she says, “Take me to where the lanterns glow.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Iris knows that this is risky, using a stranger to guide her, but she has thought and planned and ran the scenarios through her head over and over again, and this is the only way she knows she could ever be there to see the lanterns rise in the sky.

(“You know you can’t go, it’s too dangerous,” Mother had said, stroking Iris’ long hair before she left that morning on another one of her trips. “I watched you nearly die once, don’t make me do it again.”) 

But the thing is, Iris may not be dying, but she’s certainly not living, not like this. Not when Mother leaves her trapped all alone for hours or days at a time, with nothing but the thoughts in her mind.

And Iris wants to see the lights. Wants it so badly that it physically aches and floods every single one of her dreams. And now this man has agreed to take her, to spirit her away and then have her back before Mother even knows, and Iris just can’t pass up this chance, knows that something like this will never come again.

And besides, the world seems just a little less dangerous when she has a meta as her guide.

Which is why she now finds herself in his arms, her hands around his shoulders, his hands gripping her waist and tucked under her legs as he stands on the ledge of the window, preparing to speed them out of the tower.

“Ready?” he asks, and his mouth is so close, she can feel the way his breath’s hot on her cheek and the way his lips move against her ear as he speaks.

And Iris glances back at the tower, back where it’s safe, back at the tiny room she’s lived in every day for twenty years with all the books she’s already read over and over again. And then she looks forward, out the window, out toward the vast and endless sky, and the entire world that lay below, just waiting for her to get to know it. 

“I’m ready,” she says.

And then she’s flying.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Barry had planned on speeding them right to the center of the kingdom, but Iris keeps wanting to stop, keeps looking like she’s left wondrous by the world. So Barry stops speeding, starts walking, and then, for the first time in his life, starts slowing down even more, because he finds that he’s watching her, watching the way she looks wonderstruck and like she’s mentally writing down everything she sees and locking it away in her mind for later.

And before he knows it, he’s building a fire as he kneels down beside her because they’ve taken so long in the woods that it’s now nightfall, but Barry finds he doesn’t mind, not at all.

(He can’t explain why, but he doesn’t feel the need to run when he’s with her.)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Iris sits in front of the fire, warming her hands and watching the flames dance, when she feels Flash’s eyes fall on her.

“Can I ask a question?”

Iris laughs good naturedly, answers it with a question of her own as she goes, “Didn’t you just?”

“No, I’m serious,” he says, shaking his head. “If you love the outdoors this much, if you’ve wanted to see the lanterns for so long and so bad, then why haven’t you gone before?”

Iris stares at him, swallows, tries to resist her urge to turn away. There are things about her life she knows, but has never said aloud, and the thought of saying them now feels daunting.

“Please, tell me,” he says softly, so softly it almost gets lost in the night. “I want to understand.”

His brows have come together and he’s staring up at her from beneath the length of his unfairly long lashes, eyes dangerously beautiful and glittering green, and the flickering golden glow of the fire plays over his face, light and shadow dancing over the hard line of his jaw and the curve of his cheekbones and the slope of his lips. 

It’s like he’s begging, or maybe smoldering, and Iris doubts he even knows what his face is doing. 

(And then Iris finds herself wondering if his lips would feel as soft as they look, what his fast-talking smart mouth would feel like if it were put to good use.

Then she blinks, shakes her head, firmly tells herself _no,_ because whoa, where did that thought even come from?)

And to distract herself, Iris tells him what Mother told her:

“A meta killed my father.”

(Iris can’t remember her father’s face, but she can vaguely remember feeling safe and warm in a pair of strong arms before the world turned dark. And she _misses_ him. It seems strange to miss someone she barely remembers but she _does_ , and she feels her chest constrict with longing to be snuggled up safe in her father’s arms again.)

“The meta tried to kill me too,” Iris continues, as she stares into the dancing red and gold flames of the fire, and Flash’s breath hitches, loud enough for her to hear. “Mother - she’s not my real mother, but she might well be - Mother was my nursemaid. She saw the meta murder my father, and then she saved me, and hid me away so that the meta could never find me.”

“And that’s why you never left.”

“That’s why I never left,” Iris echoes. “But the tower’s so small, and the world’s so big, and I just had to. I _have_ to see these lanterns, to just _live_ for once. To just be part of the world instead of being so afraid of it.”

There is a long stretch of silence, strained and sad, and then Iris hears him say:

“I swear you don’t have to be afraid, I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”

Iris laughs, “That’s a pretty big promise, Flash.”

“I mean it,” he tells her, without question or hesitation, and as she looks over at him, at the determined look in his eyes and the hard line of his jaw and she thinks he really means it.

“I believe you,” she says, and then, when his gaze doesn’t leave hers, she whispers, “And now that you’ve already made me a promise, are you ever going to let me take off that mask?”

And Iris expects him to say _no,_ to brush her off, but much to her surprise, he _nods_. His eyes sweep over her, his long, soft brown eyelashes fluttering, and she sees him swallowing nervously, as if he’s not sure what she’ll think of him the second the mask comes off. 

And Iris leans in, close enough that she can feel the heat roll off his body in unending waves (really, she thinks, this meta energy he has is like a sizzling spark of fire itself), and slowly, she reaches up, and he watches her, cautiously, curiously, as the pads of her fingers ghost over the curve of his cheekbones and slip under the edge of his mask.

(She completely misses the way his breath catches as her fingers graze his skin.

It’s probably because she’s too busy holding her own breath to notice.)

And, gently, she pushes his hood off and pulls his mask away, and she’s left staring at him as he stares back.

(The moment feels delicate, dangerously intimate, as Iris studies the soft brown freckles that are scattered across his skin like stardust, and the way his achingly long eyelashes fan out to cast slight shadows over his cheekbones, and how he’s got eyes the color of sea glass Mother once brought back for her: stunning green that fades into a ring of the faintest blue with flecks of pale gold.

And looking into them is like getting a feeling of déjà vu that doesn’t make any sense, like in some other lifetime, they were friends.

Best friends.

 _More_ than best friends.)

“Well, Flash,” Iris whispers, once she’s got her breath back, “it’s nice to finally see you.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

They sit for a minute, the silence heavy around them, the tension thick, and then, as if he owes her something, or as if he can’t stand the quiet any longer, Barry blurts out:

“Bartholomew.”

Iris nearly laughs at his one-word outburst, “What?”

“My real name’s Bartholomew,” he says, words rushing out. “Bartholomew Henry Allen. Or Barry. Barry Allen. You should know.”

“Barry Allen, huh?” Iris says, and Barry’s always hated his name but, _oh,_ he can’t help but love how it sounds on her lips. 

He realizes he’s staring at her just a bit too long, so he laughs, looks away self-consciously, “I’ll spare you the sob story of poor little orphan Barry Allen.”

“Come on,” Iris says, scooting closer, “please?”

And her eyes are wide and sparkling in the dark, like there’s starlight reflected in them, and Barry thinks this just isn’t fair, because when she looks at him like that, he’d do just about anything she’d ask.

“When I turned twelve, I met man who took me in,” Barry says, and his heart warms when he thinks of Joe. “But I still felt...lost. Out of place. Awkward. But he had this library, and the library felt safe, like out of anyplace else, it felt like _home_.”

Even now as he tells the story, Barry feels a sense of longing for the library, a feel of both peace and homesickness as he remembers the texture of worn pages and the smell of old leather-bound books, “I spent most of my young life in there, reading every single book on the shelf. But there was this book, this one book I kept coming back to over and over again, with a character called Flash.”

“Was he a hero?” Iris asks.

“The exact hero I wanted to be. Brave and strong. Surrounded by friends, not bad with the ladies,” he says a bit sheepishly as Iris laughs, and he shrugs his shoulders. “And...I don’t know. For a lonely, awkward little kid who’d lost everything, _Flash_ just seemed like someone better to be than just Barry Allen, so that’s that name I took.”

Barry falls silent, staring into the fire, but he can still feel Iris’ eyes on him, and when he glances back up at her, there’s an expression in her eyes that he can’t quite read.

“For the record,” she says softly, “I prefer Barry Allen over The Flash.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

When they arrive in the kingdom, it’s like Iris is the one with super speed instead of Barry, because she’s a flurry of endless motion, running this way and that, like there’s so much to see and to do, and she’s trying to drink the whole world in in one large gulp.

And Barry is more than happy to be pulled along behind her, wherever she leads. And as she takes in the world with a spark in her eyes, there’s something about being with her that makes him feel _alive_.

It’s only when they’re standing in the center of the kingdom, right in town square, in the middle of the festival, bright melodies filling the air, that Barry realizes he has a problem.

Iris wants to _dance._

(And he’s tried to distract her with the sight of kites and storefronts and watercolors, and even with freshly baked brownies, and while the brownies _did_ distract her for several minutes, he’s finding out that once she makes up her mind, Iris cannot be deterred.) 

“Come on,” she hums under her breath as she watches the other dancers and leans into him, her hands wrapped around his arm. “Are you telling me you’re a speedster who’s not light on his feet?”

“That’s _exactly_ what I’m saying,” he says, even as he lets her lead him out to the dancers.

And he is a _terrible_ dancer. When he’s running, he’s swift and agile, lighter than air and lightning on his feet, but on these cobblestones and without his mask on, he feels awkward. He trips on his two left feet, stumbles into her, blushes as pink as the sunset in the sky above them, rushes to apologize, but Iris doesn’t seem to mind.

She just laughs, pulls him in even closer, moving her hands up along his shoulders before twining her arms around his neck, and he suppresses a shudder as the pads of her fingers move above the back of his collar, right against the edge of his hairline.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, the distraction of her closeness causing him to fumble and push her out of rhythm. “If I was in Flash mode right now, I could weave us through the dance steps in under a second without missing a beat.”

“I told you,” Iris says, breathing out a laugh, her voice a quiet murmur, “I like _Barry Allen_ better than the Flash.”

And he nearly trips again, because how could he not? 

Iris has a sharp wit and a dazzling smile and beauty that puts stars to shame and she likes him for who he _is_ not for what he can do, and the idea nearly winds him, makes him feel breathless like all the air’s been knocked out of his chest. 

(He’s always been a bit of a romantic. Would always listen to the matron at the orphanage read fairy tales about true love and soulmates while the other little boys shunned them. He used to get teased about it all the time as a kid. 

But the thing is, he still believes in soulmates.

And he thinks he’s just found his.)

And it’s only then that Barry realizes that the music’s come to a stop, and that his hand is still curved into the arch of her back.

(She doesn’t seem to mind.)

“See?” Iris is saying, “That was fun, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” she chides, gently nudging him with her elbow.

“Yeah. Not bad for a first date,” he jokes, and then whatever smoothness he has vanishes and he blushes, backtracks. “Not that it is a date,” he babbles, “I mean. It could be? If you wanted. If not - “

“I do,” Iris interrupts, surprising him enough to stop his run-on sentences. “Besides, it only seems proper,” she adds with a sly smile. “You have, after all, already _proposed_ to me. So these events are a bit out of order.”

Barry blushes, remembers his bumble in the tower where he offered her his last name, proposing to her by accident.

And can’t help but think he kind of wants to propose for real now that he knows her.

(He’s not ashamed to admit he is head over heels in love with this girl already.)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

“Wait here a minute,” Barry says, squeezing Iris’ hand as he leads her to stand by a wall covered in murals. “I just got an idea; I’ll be right back.”

“In a flash?” Iris asks, even though it’s ridiculous and cheesy, because something about Barry makes her _feel_ like being ridiculous and cheesy, if only to see the wide, giddy grin she knows he’ll give her. 

(And she _does_ get that grin. It takes up his whole face and makes him blush, makes him look like he’s lit up brighter than the lanterns will even be and it makes Iris feel warmth spread all the way down from her head to her toes.)

“Well, it might take a bit longer than that,” he says, still with that soft look and wide smile, “I might have to talk to someone.”

“Go,” Iris says, nudging his toe with her own, “I’ll be fine here.”

And when Barry weaves through the crowd, Iris turns and takes a step back to admire the art-covered wall behind her. It’s a mural made of mosaics, Iris realizes, with broken bits of blown glass and pottery and china plates all curling and curving together to make up a picture, and when Iris’ eyes adjust, she realizes the picture is of a man.

The man in the mosaic mural has deep, kind eyes and beautiful dark skin and there is something, _something_ about him that makes Iris step closer to study him, like somewhere in the back of her mind there is a voice whispering, _Pay attention, this is important._

And it feels like maybe she’s seen him before, that he is a memory she should know, but she just can’t quite put her finger on how she could recognize this stranger, why on Earth he’d be important to her.

Or why, when she finds herself staring at his picture, she feels like crying.

She must be overwhelmed, she thinks. She’s not used to the bright sunshine and bustling crowds.

And she’s just reaching forward, fingers ready to ghost over the edges of the mosaics when Barry’s suddenly back by her side, the burst of air sending her hair blowing back and billowing over her shoulders.

“Ready?” he asks.

Iris laughs, “Ready for what?”

And as he takes her hand he says:

“The best night of your life.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Barry’s idea, as it turns out, is a boat.

So that’s where Iris and Barry sit now, on a small boat in the calm and glassy water that mirrors the darkening sky. 

And Iris watches as the sky fades from pink to purple to sapphire blue, deep and dark and utterly lovely, and she knows the lanterns will rise soon, and she feels like she’s at the top of a cliff, about to leap, her pulse skipping too fast for her to speak.

“Hey,” Barry says, and she feels him lean in and take her hand, his thumb brushing across the back of it. “You okay?”

And Barry, the man with an endless sea of energy, the man who moves faster than anyone else on Earth, waits patiently for Iris to gather her thoughts.

“I’m terrified,” Iris admits. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment every single night of my life. What if it’s not everything I’ve built it up in my mind to be?”

“It will be,” Barry promises, sounding as if he’d light a thousand lanterns himself just to make sure of it.

“But what if it _is?_ What do I do then?”

She watches as Barry’s gaze sweeps over her, and then slowly, he smiles, and his fingers squeeze hers, and he says, “That’s the good part, I guess. You go and find a new dream.”

And as Iris sits there, staring at him and the way he’s staring at _her_ , like he’s wonderstruck, like she’s made of stardust and moonglow and everything beautiful, she thinks that she already _has_ a new dream. That it’s _him._ How could it be anything _but_ him?

And Iris doesn’t truly believe in fate - you make your own destiny after all, but she thinks that if you make your own destiny, then she’s making Barry Allen hers.

And she’s just about to say something, just about to tell him, but then she sees it:

A single sparkle of light in the sky.

She stares in stunned silence, eyes focused on the pinprick of light on the dark horizon, like a single floating star, and then:

She’s _surrounded_ by light. Thousands of lanterns are filling the sky, painting it with color and bathing her in their glow. They’re above her head and in the air beside her, and then they reflect off the water beneath her, and when Iris looks around, she feels like she’s floating in a star-filled sea, and the moment is all golden and glittering and everything perfect.

Her breath is caught in her chest, and she feels dazzled and astonished, enchanted and amazed, because all those dreams she had can’t possibly compare to how she’s feeling right now, because this? This is better. It’s better than dream or wish or hope she’s had and she turns to Barry, and asks, “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful in your entire life?”

He stares at her, his eyes soft as he smiles, and he says:

_“Yes.”_

And from anyone else it might sound insincere, like it’s some sort of line he’s feeding her, but it’s not. She can tell he’s not. He’s staring at her like he’s seen lantern-filled lagoons and starlit skies and fiery pink sunsets that sink into the sea, and that there is nothing - _absolutely nothing_ \- in the world that can even come anywhere close to how beautiful she looks to him right then. 

And then her gaze is falling to his lips and he’s leaning in, close enough that she can see the detail of his long lashes, and the freckles that slip down under the open collar of his vest, but he’s still far enough away to let her choose. His green eyes sweep over her face as if to ask, _Is this okay? Is this what you want?_

And Iris wants this. 

( _Oh,_ how she wants this.)

His hand curves over her cheek before sliding into her hair, gently tilting her head up until their lips are just a breath apart, and she can feel his hot exhale fan out over her mouth as her eyes flutter shut at his touch. His lips brush over hers, feather light and velvet soft, and then -

She’s breathing him in, feels like she’s falling into him, and she can feel the lightning-like warmth of his energy making her body buzz and pulling her in, like he is something electric, something _magnetic_ she just can’t resist.

And he kisses like a summer storm, exhilarating and intoxicating and sweeping her away, and Barry Allen is her first kiss, but somewhere in the back of her mind Iris is thinking that he’s going to be her last kiss too, because there’s no way on this Earth that she’s ever letting this boy go. He’s hers, he’s _got_ to be hers. 

And then they’re breaking away, breath shaky, eyes starry, and Barry’s staring at her in a way that’s so open and loving, like she’s everything in his world, and when he reaches out to tuck a strand of stray hair behind her ear, the pads of his fingers against her skin send a shiver right through her and Iris just wants to kiss him again. 

“Iris,” Barry whispers, and he says her name with a sort of reverence, with a sort of tenderness that lights Iris up from the inside out, “Iris, I -“

And then everything starts to fall apart.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

All Barry wants to do is kiss Iris.

(He could just go on kissing her for the rest of his life, he thinks. Could live and die a happy man as long as he has her.)

But behind her, beyond the water and on the shore, he sees the only thing that could possibly stop him.

He sees _Thawne._

And as much as Barry wants to stay in the boat with Iris, floating with her on the glowing water, he can’t. Not when the kingdom might be in danger, not when _she_ might be in danger.

(Because she’s his priority now, above anyone or anything else.)

So, reluctantly (and trust him, he’s very reluctant, pulling away might be the hardest choice he’s made in his life, his post-Iris-kissed clouded brain thinks), he pulls his hand away from Iris’ face and places them on her waist, and in the span of half a heartbeat, he has them off the water and onto the shore, their feet sinking into the sand.

“Barry,” Iris demands, her hands gripping his wrists, “what’s going on?” 

He shushes her, lowers her behind a rocky bluff on the beach, “There’s danger, Iris.” 

She goes still in his arms, suddenly serious, “Danger?”

“Stay here, stay hidden,” he tells her, and he knows she wants to argue, can tell she’s about to, but the ominous orange glow of the other meta on the beach is getting closer, so Barry leans forward, presses a feather-light kiss to her forehead...

And then he’s gone.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Barry and another masked and hooded figure - another meta, Iris realizes - are fighting on the beach.

The sight is terrifying. There is energy fizzling around them, ominous and angry and sharp, like a single spark from it could burn the whole kingdom up. Some of the fight happens so fast that they’re halfway across the sand before Iris can even blink, and they’re screaming and fighting all in the time it takes for her to inhale and exhale. And then some of the fight slows down, like they’re so busy locked onto each other, they forget to even speed. All Iris knows is she sees a glint of bright silver, glittering in the starlight, and she hears Barry scream and sees red that isn’t speed energy, but blood, and then Iris is scrambling, grabbing at driftwood and rocks and branches, anything at all to hurl at the meta.

(Because Iris may be tiny and she may not have speed, but this world will have to pry Barry Allen from her cold, dead hands if they want him, because she will _not_ let him go.)

She grips a sturdy piece of wood that’s splintering at the ends and piercing her hands, and it’s then that she sees that Barry’s side is bleeding, and she sees him tackle the other meta, pinning their hands to the sand. The other meta’s fist still grips a knife, and they struggle under Barry’s grip, leaving lines in the sand as they try to get free to stab him again, and Iris raises the branch in her hands, gets ready to swing, and then:

The hood falls off the other meta.

And Iris feels her breath sharp beneath her ribs and her whole world turn sideways as a single word leaves her lips. 

And that word is:

_“Mother?”_

It’s _Mother_ Barry has pinned down. It’s _Mother_ who’s holding the blood stained knife. It’s _Mother_ who has the glow of meta powers around them. 

Barry and Mother - if Iris should even call her that - stop at the sound of her voice, both of them surprised, their eyes wide. 

“Iris,” Barry says, his voice sounding strained, his eyes looking clouded with confusion. “Iris, this is _Thawne._ This is the criminal I was chasing when I found your tower, the criminal the entire kingdom’s been chasing for years.”

Iris stares, stares at the way Barry’s struggling to keep Mother’s hand holding the sharp silver dagger pinned down, stares at the way Mother’s looking at her with unbridled disgust, like Iris is a stupid child who’s ruined all of her plans, like Mother’s thinking that maybe she’ll use the knife on Iris next, and Iris feels several truths hit her all at once, turning her cold, and the facts turn over in her mind, dark and tangled and sickening as she tries to straighten them out:

Mother is Thawne.

Thawne is meta, a meta who was a criminal that Barry was chasing.

If Mother is Thawne and Thawne is a meta and a criminal, then what else had Mother - no, maybe not even Mother, _Thawne_ \- what else has Thawne kept hidden?

“Why have you been chasing her?” Iris asks, her voice echoing in her ears. “What did she do?”

“Twenty years ago, Thawne was the castle alchemist. But one night, she tried to assassinate the king,” Barry says, “and then she killed the king’s baby. By the time the guards got there, the king was bleeding out and the cradle was burnt down to the ground.”

_The king’s baby._

_Twenty years ago._

“Was it a girl?” Iris asks, and before the question even leaves her lips, she knows the answer, she can _feel_ it, deep down in her heart, right where it aches, that she’s _right._

She thinks of how she’s cried for so many nights at the undeniable feeling that she missed a father who she could barely remember and the way the man in the mosaic mural felt like something, like he was _someone_ to her and the way there were so many things in her life that didn’t add up and now suddenly were.

“Yes, the baby was a girl,” Barry says, and his brows come together for a minute, like he’s wondering how on Earth she could know, and then she sees it all click in his mind and his eyes go wide with recognition. 

The king’s daughter wasn’t dead, she was alive. It was _her_. Her father had thought she’d been dead this whole time, just like how she thought he had been dead.

And it had all been a pack of twisted lies.

And then Thawne laughs.

And she laughs and she laughs and she _laughs_. And the sound is bitter and sharp and sets Iris on edge.

“So,” Thawne says, “you finally figured it out, did you? Twenty years of careful lies and all it takes is one trip outside for you to find the truth.” And there’s something that looks eerily like cruelty mixed with possessive pride as Thawne says, “Always knew when I was raising you that you were far too clever for your own good, my girl.”

“I’m _not_ your girl,” Iris hisses, rage flaring up inside of her like a burning fire. “You _stole_ me. Stole me away from my home, from my real parent, from my _life._ And what even for?”

“Iris,” Barry says, but Iris steps closer, too angry to stop.

“You told me you were my nursemaid, that you _saved_ me, when you were really the one ruining everything. Why would you even do this?”

“ _Iris,”_ Barry says again. “Look at your hair.”

And then Iris _does_ look, and she sees that strands of her hair are sticking out like static, pointed toward the glow of Thrawne’s meta powers. She’s never seen that happen before, but then she’s never seen Thrawne’s powers actually activated in front of her before either, and Iris closes her eyes, her knees nearly giving way from the sudden nausea in the pit of her stomach as she remembers each now-sickening memory of her “mother” carefully brushing her hair before she left Iris alone in the tower.

“I’m some sort of... _conductor_ for your powers, aren’t I?” Iris bites out, bile rising in the back of her throat. “I absorbed meta energy when I was a baby, and you needed it. _That’s_ why you kept me. You lied, taught me to be terrified of a monster out there, when all along the monster in the stories was _you.”_

Iris stares her captor right in the eyes, curls her fingers into fists, and says,

“I swear with all that I am that I will _never_ be used by you again.”

And then Thawne says, “We’ll see about that.”

And Iris’ world dissolves into purple smoke.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Thawne has escaped from Barry’s grasp and is running circles around him, taking away his breath and bringing him to his knees, while the lavender glow of the flowing speedforce starts to shimmer around him.

And yet while Barry’s body bends and his skin bleeds and his lungs burn, the only thought he has is _her:_

Iris with her big eyes and bigger heart. Iris with her brilliant mind and bright smile. Iris who’s so full of _life,_ like she’s an entire, beautiful universe packed into a single person.

He can’t let her go back to her tower, to being used by Thrawne.

He’d rather _die_ than let that happen.

And it’s not just a sentiment. Barry Allen _means_ it.

Which is why, with every last ounce of strength in his body, he reaches for the silver knife that Thawne dropped when she escaped from his grasp and started running. If Thawne needs Iris’ hair to strengthen her powers, Barry reasons, then cutting Iris’ hair will cut off Thawne’s power source. 

And if you get lost in the speedforce without powers or with weakened ones, Barry knows, you can be lost in there forever, dissolved into the dark nothingness. 

Barry’s head is hazy, his movements dreamlike, the plan barely there as his fingers curl around the curved hilt of the knife, but he _has_ to try. Has to save Iris however it takes, no matter the cost.

(And it _will_ cost something. Because at the weakened state he’s in now, and without a lightning rod to bring him back, he’ll be trapping himself in this Thawne-made speedforce too.)

But if he dies, then Iris goes free. And there is no argument he can think of to change his mind, no fact in the universe that could stop him.

Because the thing is, he loves her. Loves her so deeply and so vastly and endlessly that it consumes him. 

Loves her so much more than himself.

So he reaches out, and before he loses all hold on this reality, quick as lightning, he strikes off Iris’ hair.

And with a sudden cry, Thawne is _gone_. Just like that, consumed by purple smoke, and right before Barry himself is fully sucked into the speedforce, he looks up and sees Iris’ eyes.

And he finds he can’t regret his choice at all.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Everything happens in the blink of an eye.

One second Iris has long hair, and the next it’s shorn to her shoulders, and she has no time to ask, to even react, before she sees Thawne dissolving away in a purple cloud, and then Barry being pulled away from her.

And without a moment of hesitation, without even needing to think, Iris leaps, and finds herself stepping into a world of deep amethyst and sapphire smoke. Speedforce winds swirl around her with a dangerous, nebulous shimmer, and it’s like she’s moving somewhere outside of their dimension, outside of time, and Barry’s floating away from her, like he’s not anchored to the world at all, but that doesn’t stop Iris.

Nothing in this universe, or any other, has the power to stop Iris from saving him.

“Come back to me,” she says, struggling against the winds and the motion and the blur of the world going by.

She surges forward, stretching out her hand toward him, and for a second, his emerald eyes look confused, like his mind is being torn away, but then he focuses on her, on her face, on her eyes, and moment by moment, his eyes begin to clear.

And she can feel the winds trying to keep them away from one other, can feel forces pushing her away from him like they’re two opposing magnetic fields, but Iris reaches, pushes back, lunges forward with everything she has...

....And feels Barry grip her hand.

She gasps at the contact, gripping him back, holding onto him, because he’s her lifeline as much as she is his.

(Because, the thing is, she doesn’t need meta-powers to be Barry’s lightning rod.

She just needs to be _herself_.)

“Come back to me,” Iris says, as if her words could reach him where her touch couldn’t, as if her words could guide him home. “You've got to come back. _You_ were my new dream.”

And he says: “And you were mine.”

And then Iris feels something _give_ , and it’s like seeing a crack in a mirror that splinters and spreads, and the next thing she knows the violet glow of the speedforce is shattering, scattering like it’s raining shards of glass, and she’s pulling him out in a shower of sparkle and smoke and then he’s falling into her arms. 

They stand there, gasping for air, holding onto each other, dazed and disoriented and desperate, so desperate for closeness. He clutches her to his chest, and she grasps at his vest as she pulls him close and then closer still, needing to sense his heartbeat, needing to feel the heavy inhales and exhales that shake his body. He all but collapses into her, and then he buries his face in the crook of her neck, his forehead falling close to her shoulder, his breath hot on her skin, ghosting down over the curve of her collarbones.

He shudders in her arms, and they cling to each other, _anchor_ each other, and then, gradually, the speed of her heartbeat slows down and his breaths even out, and he shifts against her once again, and she can feel the gentle flutter of his eyelashes brush against her skin as he blinks.

“It’s okay, Barry,” she breathes, her fingers threading through his hair. “It’s okay, you came back to me.”

And then he raises his head, and something warm unfurls in Iris’ chest as he presses his lips to hers, and against her mouth he whispers: 

_“Always.”_

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

King Joesph is in his library when Barry Allen bursts through the doors.

Barry is breathless, and there’s bruises on his skin and blood on his clothes and Joe rushes forward, tries to look him over and make him sit down, but Barry won’t listen.

“Come on,” Barry says, gripping Joe’s coat and tugging him away from his chair. “Come on! I’ve found her. You’ve got to meet her.”

Joe frowns in concern at the waves of energy rolling off of Barry - Barry, who seems to think that the way he’s bruised and bleeding is of no importance compared to whatever he’s pulling Joe towards. 

“You’re going to love her,” Barry’s says, babbling ecstatically as he’s dragging Joe along, his sentences coming out in rapid fire succession. “You can’t _help_ it. How could anyone meet her and _not_ fall completely in love? Oh, Joe, she’s so excited - “

Joe digs his heels in, reaches out to grab Barry’s wrist, thinks maybe the boy’s delirious, “Barry, _what_ are you talking about?”

“I’ve found her,” Barry repeats, wild-eyed and smiling wide.

“Who?” Joe asks, eyes alight with amusement, “the love of your life?”

Barry blushes, for a reason Joe doesn’t understand quite then.

(Oh, but he _will_. Joe will understand the very moment he sees the way Barry gazes at her.)

But that’s later. Right now, Joe feels his world stop as Barry says:

“I’ve found your daughter, Joe. She’s _alive_.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

Joe thinks that maybe he's asleep, because he’s only ever dreamed of this.

(And he’s dreamt of their reunion over and over. He has dreamt but nothing _but_ it for twenty long years.)

And yet here he is, standing on his castle balcony over the sea, staring at a girl in front of him who might just be his daughter. And he’s terrified, terrified it won’t turn out to be her, terrified his heart will break _again_ , terrified this dream will dissolve and he’ll wake up, back in the real world where his daughter is dead and gone.

But, slowly, cautiously, he steps toward her anyways, studies her face, looks into her wide, glittering eyes...

And without even realizing what he’s doing, his hand is coming up, the pads of his fingers fanning out over her cheek, his palm cupping her face, like his subconscious recognizes her already, like his heart knows it’s her before his mind can catch up.

“ _Dad,”_ she says, and it’s not a question, it’s a _declaration._

And that’s it. That’s all she needs to say. And then Joe is wrapping her up in his arms and feeling like he’s both coming undone and becoming completed for the first time in _years_. 

“It’s _you_ ,” he sobs into her hair, over and over again. “It’s really you. You’re _alive_ , you’ve come back to me.”

“I’ve missed you,” Iris cries, as she both sobs and smiles, “I missed you without even fully remembering you. It was like my heart could still feel you somewhere out there, thinking of me.”

And then another sob catches in Joe’s chest at her words and his heart twists and he hugs his daughter - his beautiful, beautiful daughter - even closer.

“That was real,” he swears, hands stroking her hair. “I _always_ thought of you. There hasn’t been a single day that’s gone by where I haven’t.”

And Joe thinks he must be the luckiest man ever born, because his baby girl is alive and breathing and back in his arms and that’s all he ever wanted.

There is nothing, he thinks, not one more thing on this Earth that could possibly make this moment better.

And then, after a while, when Iris reaches back for Barry and pulls him into the hug so that it’s the three of them, and Joe sees the achingly soft look in Barry’s eyes as he smiles at Iris, Joe thinks:

Okay, maybe there _was_ one more thing.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

_**Epilogue** _

Iris leans against the castle balcony, looking off at the sea, and she thinks that any happiness she’s known before this must’ve been counterfeit; a lie, a clever fake, because this, this is true happiness, her having her home and her father and her freedom.

And _him._

Iris smiles as spiraling, golden strands of sparkling energy erupt in the air around her like fireworks, and a gust of air brushes her short hair off her shoulders, and then Barry’s by her side. His presence floods her senses, and warmth spreads through Iris, both from the crackling heat of his meta energy and from the wideness of his smile when his eyes land on her.

“Kingdom patrolled, your highness,” Barry reports. “Thieves caught, items returned, Joe checked in on - he’s bragging about you to the foreign dignitaries in his meeting right now, by the way - cats helped down out of trees, children helped up out of wells...”

Iris laughs, “And now?”

“Now?” he echoes, reaching out to lace his fingers together with hers. “Now I’m all yours.”

“You are, aren’t you?”

“You know,” Barry says, as he gives her a gentle tug, pulling their bodies closer, “that day in the tower, I wasn’t really joking when I offered you my last name.”

Iris tilts her head, pretends to be thinking about what he’s just said.

(As if there’s anything to consider. As if she doesn’t already know her answer.

She has always been his as much as he’s always been hers.)

“That’s a nice offer,” Iris says, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning and realizing that she’s already failing. “I already have a last name, though.” 

“You could always hyphenate,” he hums as he brings her hand up and presses a tender kiss to the back of it, his lips leaving warm sparks on her skin and a shiver down her spine.

“Iris Ann West-Allen,” she says, trying the name out on her tongue. “I think it sounds nice.”

“I think it sounds _beautiful.”_

“You do, do you?”

“I do,” he says.

(Except he’s no longer joking now. He means it. He’s looking at her like it’s the most beautiful name anyone could ever dream up. Staring at her with a sort of reverence and awe, like she’s every good thing he’s ever seen in the universe, like the sheer amount of love he has for her is so overwhelming it completely sweeps him away.) 

“I think it’s the best name I’ve heard in my life,” he whispers. 

And as he leans down and brushes his lips over hers and Iris sighs against the feel of him, she thinks that she agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn't watched Tangled in a while and yet for some reason as soon as I saw Grant do this thing where he slightly furrowed his brows and then looked up through his stupidly long lashes, my brain immediately screamed “FLYNN RIDER SMOLDER,” and thus this fic idea was born.
> 
> (Plus, Barry has that Disney Prince hair and actually, you know, _sings love songs in canon_ , so it fits.)
> 
> I made this account last week, posted my first westallen fic, and was planning on dipping, figuring it would get ignored, but I was so surprised by the kudos and the genuinely kind comments that I felt encouraged to write and post this fic. So, really, thank you guys so much for all the kudos and comments, you’re awesome and this fic got posted because of you. I hope you like this one enough to leave it a comment or kudos too! ❤️
> 
> Come chat about the gold standard with me on Twitter (@irisbestallen) or Tumblr (iris-west-allens.tumblr.com)!


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